Here's the complete house floor plan.

created a long galley kitchen with Pantry and Island. Please provide feedback. :-( Tried but could not create a perfect kitchen triangle with all desirable options.

why does the foyer not have a straight thru passage to kitchen[or dinette as it were?]..with the closure you are creating off at the right,the foyer entry would have an opening into kitchen it seems.It's convoluted to come in the front or down the stairs and get to the kitchen areas of seating.An island or dinette table or both,flanking where people "are" as opposed to placing the table/island in the furthest positions away from people would be my goal .....you want to close off the space...in so doing, there is a kind of inaccessability.

Can you steal any space from the livingroom?
w/ your house layout, I think you have a perfect space for the (left to right): Familyroom, Dining, Kitchen situation.

my gf's layout (her previous one was just like yours)

just ideas...
Amanda

@herbFlavor: Currently the foyer does not have a straight passage to the kitchen. you can enter either from the Family doorway or from the dining. After initial talks with the contractors, it seems like that wall of the kitchen (where the foyer ends) is a structural wall and we might not be able to remove it. :-(
@Amanda...I like the pictures you sent. I will try creating some layout with this idea.
It's good to discuss and get new ideas :-)

That seems okay--the supporting wall. Not having people at the entry looking straight into intimate family space is considered a good thing by many, including a lot of unwitting peepers at doors. :)

My feeling is that, if you're incorporating the dining room, the family room side of the kitchen should not extend past where the stairs begin--at most. This might allow, among whatever else, a door or doors to the garden directly across from the stairs, which could look very nice and serve people coming from them, the kitchen, and the family room.

This would leave you a space roughly 14 x 18+, which is quite large, including just large enough in the short/14 dimension to fit an island right in the middle if you wish (a little tweaking and trading here and there). Since you have all this good space, it's really about fussing about those tradeoffs between viable options.

If you wanted people to be able to come sit at the counter at the family end (is that open?), AND you were going to place doors to the garden opposite, I might inset the counter from the stair line a bit to keep stools out of traffic's way.

If you did have stools on the outside of this counter (homework?) how about a nice convivial (round, oval?) table and chairs in the middle of the kitchen for kids' breakfast, waiting for the rice to finish, chatting over a cup of coffee, etc?

@Rosie..the way to the family room is an opening. No counter there as it is the only connection to the family room. The arch I drew is for creating an archway :-)

Currently after coming down the stairs, to go to the garden you go through the family room. The patio door is just left of the kitchen. I am not changing that portion of the plan.

Some draft renders of your design (from the third post):

To give you a different option to consider...Taking hints from your design, I tried something a bit different. Dropped the big pantry you wanted for a pair of full height cabs, moves the range, reduces overall room width to 12'8" (avoiding the nooks), drops island seating, using front & back opening 28" cabs.

Brief hijack from someone with a vaguely similar dilemma as the OP..Holy cow, Seattlecraftsman, could you share what program you used for those renderings. I've been playing with my incredibly awkward space forever using Ikea's kitchen planner, even though I don't expect to use Ikea cabinets. I've been stymied in trying to figure out Sketchup but if that's what you used I probably need to give it another shot.

Those draft renders came out of Chief Architect. Check out Home Designer by the same software house - more affordable. Amazon often sells it for a nice price.
SketchUp is powerful and priced reasonably, but the learning curve is steep and modeling rooms in it takes a while to become proficient.

Easiest is graph paper and getting one of the modelers on the forum to help out. Shoot me an e-mail if you'd like a hand.

Thanks so much Seattlecraftsman. I will check out Home Designer, and hopefully will have a thread of my own next week. I just had a contracter in for a second look because my space is weirdly configured (small house on a slab, expanded twice without touching the narrow kitchen.) Like MSeth I'm trying to expand into adjacent rooms. Very very sorry for the hijack MSeth - it looks like you will have some great possibilities with all your space, good luck!